Does anyone else find this game too "silent"? I'm not a fan of the lack of a world chat option... having the best means of communicating with people or talking as /shout really kills off a lot of the social aspect I enjoy in a MMO.

This is The Realm, released in 1996... my first MMO. It had a more featured chat and social system than ARR has right now. It also had the option to change your room IRC style or turn off chat. Why is it that 17 years later we have less options? A lot of people play MMOs for the social aspect, and right now it feels like a huge world where it's rare to see anyone talk other than a NPC. I log in, I play, I enjoy the looks and the mechanics and never end up staying on for long because it always ends up seeming like I'm playing the game with the slow story and speed of play you get in a MMO but with the social prowess of a single player game, and I realize I'd probably have more fun playing a well paces and written single player game instead.

I really want to get into this more... but the "silence" drags it down for me.

It's a beta test, not a free demo. If you find features lacking, then either make the suggestion in the appropriate feedback forum or support the established thread if there is one. Even though the game is nearly complete, it's still in a phase where changes can occur.

It's a beta test, not a free demo. If you find features lacking, then either make the suggestion in the appropriate feedback forum or support the established thread if there is one. Even though the game is nearly complete, it's still in a phase where changes can occur.

I know it's a beta, and I understand what that means. I never said "Weeeee, freeee game!", I simply asked if anyone else felt this way about the chat system. As far as the forums go I have posted feedback on this and other things. I don't understand why you'd make the reply you did as it doesn't address an honest question I had for others on this forum in the beta. Would you like an apology for posting an opinion you don't seem to like? It sort of seems that way.

I also noticed that too today while playing. I play a lot of GW2 and Rift and there's a lot of chatter so it did seem very quiet. But, its a beta so that could change. The music heard is pretty good though. I do however find the combat very generic. Good enough but I'm really not sold on this game yet as there are ftp options out there just as good. Still, I enjoy the FF world a lot.

I find any MMO with a global chat channel abuses it like crazy. The only one that doesn't seem to do that is GW2, but then somehow GW2 has generated an amazing community somehow. Honestly I admire the changes they've made since Phase 1 and 2 and feel like I can really get behind the game now.

Though I will mention on the beta forums the need for some kind of better explanation of Thaumaturge's Umbral Ice and Astral Fire.

I wish they'd just use "Deals X damage" or "Weapon dmg x2/3/4" I'm left looking at all of my skills and rearranging every time I get a new skill based on vague ideas on which is best. "Hmm... A is 180 potency and B is 200. I imagine 200 potency is a stronger attack? But C is 150 potency and combines with a for 100 potency. Is that 100 extra potency, so if I A (180) then C (150) I get +(100) so it ends up (430) instead of B(200)+B(200) for (400)? Wait, is potency additive or multiplicative? Would that be 430 or 400% of my weapon damage, or something else?"

After coming back to this game from Path of Exile it's even more frustrating. If 100 potency = 100% autoattack damage (which it seems to) then why not just call it 100% damage and reference skills that way? "40 potency per second for 6 seconds" changes to "40% attack damage per second for 6 seconds" and you can glance at it and quickly know it's like doing 2.4 extra auto attacks over 6 seconds.

It's a beta test, not a free demo. If you find features lacking, then either make the suggestion in the appropriate feedback forum or support the established thread if there is one. Even though the game is nearly complete, it's still in a phase where changes can occur.

I know it's a beta, and I understand what that means. I never said "Weeeee, freeee game!", I simply asked if anyone else felt this way about the chat system. As far as the forums go I have posted feedback on this and other things. I don't understand why you'd make the reply you did as it doesn't address an honest question I had for others on this forum in the beta. Would you like an apology for posting an opinion you don't seem to like? It sort of seems that way.

If you had asked the question and given a simple opinion, sure. You kind of went on a rant about how a game 17 years older (with pics I might add) did communication better and how it detracted from your sense of enjoyment of the game. That's a valid opinion, but that's not really asking for how other people feel. It kind of seems like, well, a rant. Your opinion is entirely your opinion. However, I've seen too many people mask their opinion as fact and beseech the community to corroborate their angst and it does nothing for productive discussion and usually devolves into a flame war. I was just reminding you that the game was a beta, not a finalized demo and that now is the time to give your feedback. These forums aren't a direct line to the development team so I'm failing to see the point of your post as something constructive other than complaining about an aspect of the game that may yet change. I'm sorry if you thought I was attacking you, because I really wasn't trying to be disrespectful.

With that said, and in light of your original question: I can't really say I'm a big fan of global chat. I saw it abused to rediculous extent in WoW. Barrens Chat is infamous. ARR gives you the ability to have 8 Linkshells active at one time along with general chat. I'm sure once those channels fill out it will feel more social. Right now its a quick weekend beta where people are probably more interested in being tourists than socializing. I think once the beta has more server uptime it'll be a little more social. But, I could be wrong. Time will tell.

I find a global chat channel to be mostly a convenience if I want to get something done. I can log on and immediately hear people talking about if they're going to go run a dungeon or something. I've never cared for the kinds of stupid conversations people tend to have in global chat channels though, for one thing its just annoying, but the other thing is that it makes it hard for me to find the global chat messages I'm actually interested in reading.

Exclusion of a global chat channel though, I think should only be done if it's part of the intended "tone" of the game. There's something cool about the Ultima Online sort of thing where the only chat channel that matters is a /say type channel with the intent of making you feel like you're actually your character.

Does anyone else find this game too "silent"? I'm not a fan of the lack of a world chat option... having the best means of communicating with people or talking as /shout really kills off a lot of the social aspect I enjoy in a MMO.

I really hate global chat or even general chat because it's usually a cesspool. I guess I'm one of the few people who turn off general chat immediately upon loading the game. I use guilds to be social rather than listen to random idiots in general chat say things like "Who is ready for a [Ferocious Butt][Pound]?" I also don't need to hear children arguing about something stupid. Big audiences bring out the worst in people so I really try to close the chats asap.

I find any MMO with a global chat channel abuses it like crazy. The only one that doesn't seem to do that is GW2, but then somehow GW2 has generated an amazing community somehow. Honestly I admire the changes they've made since Phase 1 and 2 and feel like I can really get behind the game now.

And I'm not meaning just a global barrens type chat... I much prefer IRC style chat, where you can create rooms for your guild/friends/topic/whatever, the room creator has kick/ban rights for their instance, etc. It's a way to keep the chat friendly and reasonable in your room but still have a server wide chat available.

There are always the forums for stuff like that. Honestly though, during the beta testing on these games 90% of any available global chat is people comparing the game to whatever the other latest and greatest MMO is and WoW. I'd rather that stuff be kept to the beta forums where I can ignore it.

What's the point of playing an mmo without the massively multiplayer experience? I enjoy global chat as a means of general banter. Sure a large number of morons like to pretend they're funny and use obscene language and silly auto translation vulgar comments, but sometimes you can have a good conversation like an open discussion on a forum. Take the good with the bad.

It works just fine. Usually general banter is just done in Linkshells or, when you want to annoy people, shouting in major cities. Shouting in major cities is basically the same as global chat. Also, as stated, forums help you find linkshells, but so does reputation. In FFXI if you were looking for an event LS, you generally checked people with the event gear, sent them a /tell, and asked them to join, or about what events they do. Usually they ask about your classes and experience, your available times and gear, and some ask you to fill out an application. Servers are tightly knit groups.

It's quite a refined system, to be quite honest, and I much prefer it to something like WoW. It's also self-moderating. For FFXI, you had sites like BG that have a a forum for warnings against certain characters, or for asking for information about the character in question from other players who might have experience with them before. The Japanese are also well known for shaming people who fuck others over.

I don't like the global chats usually, but I feel the need to reiterate that I think excluding global chat is a bad idea. It's not hard to filter global chat so including it helps the people that like it and has little effect on the people that don't. Shouting was ultimately a terrible system in FFXI because it restricted you to only recruiting people from certain areas in the game, and the problem becomes more and more apparent as the population of the game shrinks.

For me the best solution would be to create an official "recruiting" channel that requires you to enter your message very restrictively, like say adding a drop down menu of dungeons + classes you need in your group, that sort of thing. That way I can have a channel at all times that is specifically for LFG/LFM.

I also agree that creating private channels at a whim is also a nice feature, I used it quite a bit when I played WoW.

For those playing the PS3 beta or planning on playing the PS3 version:

There seems to be a massive valley of performance between end users on the forums. While the game is NOT rendered in true HD ( its 576p upscaled to 720p) the problems with texture loading and lag seem to be related to the specific HDD in the PS3. Players with the old FAT PS3 are having more problems with poor performance vs. newer Slim models. Those who are having better performance are players who have upgraded to 7200 RPM drives vs the stock 5400 RPM. Most 7200 RPM HDDs have larger cache sizes too. The best performers were those who upgraded to a SSD. Even though the PS3 firmware does not support the fancier speeds of a SSD, its a huge jump in cache speed and data transfer.

For users with stock HDDs who don't want to invest in an upgrade, it's recommended to do a backup of your HDD data via cloud or external flash drive and reformat since the PS3 has no native defragment and error correction recovery like a PC OS.

Hope this helps those of you with performance issues. Just remember this was the first test of the PS3 client so don't forget to leave feedback in the appropriate forum. I anticipate a plethora of changes before release.